


Fly Away

by articulatez, TheDandyCrickette



Series: Birds of Prey [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Choking, F/M, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, POV Alternating, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-04-26 05:16:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14395080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/articulatez/pseuds/articulatez, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDandyCrickette/pseuds/TheDandyCrickette
Summary: Sansa runs away from beau Joffrey Baratheon and right into trouble.





	1. Chapter 1

She stood by the side of the road, in her cocktail dress, trenchcoat, and kitten heels. And a busted lip. She texted "I will miss you xoxo" to her friend Jeyne, an ominous goodbye, before crushing the phone underfoot. A goodbye to her old life. And then she tossed the pieces into a puddle. She wished Lady were still alive and with her. The night would feel less cold and lonely. Sansa had felt lonely for a long time.

From a row of hedges Sandor snapped a photo, without flash of course, of Sansa at the side of the road. That prick Joffrey had been paying him to tail her for weeks. He must've been afraid something like this would happen. She was a silly girl, running away like this. Hitchhiking in the middle of the night dressed like *that.* He could only imagine the trouble she'd get herself into. It would be a hassle for him to keep track of her if some other pervert picked her up.

Quietly, he returned to where his truck was parked some ways away and made sure all of his paperwork, notes, and photos were locked up in the toolbox before he started the car and turned onto the road.

Sansa let herself smile. A chance. She stepped out where the driver could see her and stuck out her thumb.

Sandor slowed to a stop in front of her and pushed the door open. He wouldn't be surprised if she ran back to her sadist prettyboy when she saw him: stringy, greasy hair fell onto his burned face, he reeked of cigars and whiskey, and his hands were dirty and cracked with callouses.

Sansa swallowed hard. He was ugly. But she reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a clip of bills. "Here," she says, offering them to him as she steps up into the passenger side. "For gas." Also tucked into her pocket was a little dispenser of pepperspray.

Sandor looks at the bills in his hand slowly, shocked at how much she's handing him. But he pockets all of it without a word and started driving again. Stupid doll, he thought to himself. To her he said "You're too pretty to be hitching a ride this late." His gaze roamed over her cocktail dress. "Where you headed?"

"Anywhere. As far as you'll take me." She buckled her seatbelt, tugging a few times when it wouldn't reach. Broken and busted up as much as she was.

"Whatever you say, Princess." He would drive down the highway until she fell asleep. Joffrey wasn't paying him to drag her back to him. Not yet, anyway. And until he was, Sandor figured he could get plenty of blackmail material out of naive little Sansa.

"I'm not a princess," she said coldly. Joffrey had never married her. It had been a year of unwedded hell following the death of their fathers. Try though his mother might, he'd never been motivated to make an honest woman of Sansa. And why should he? She'd been everything he'd wanted.

Sandor scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Then you got a name?"

"Cat," she said with a smile. "Cat Tully."

"Cat," he repeats. "Like a sweet little pussycat?" She must think him so blue-collar that he wouldn't know of the Tully's or of her mother. He laughs to himself and says, "Well, don't you worry, Kitten. I'll take good care of you."

She keeps her hand in her pocket, gripping her pepper spray. After everything, she marvels at her ability to feel fear. She contends with keeping an eye on his gruesome mug as if he could stare his way into her panties.

There wasn't much to say after that. He pulled onto a long stretch of highway and turned on some low music to fill the space between them. She looked exhausted and he was betting he could wait her out easily.

Sansa meant to stay awake the entire time, but the pain in her mouth and in her ribs was draining in itself. Add to that her vigilance against the truck driver and she didn't stand a chance against the darkness and white noise. So her head bobbed twice, her eyes drifting shut and then snapping open, until she gave in, curling towards the door and resting her head on the window. The world turned dark and, blissfully, she barely dreamed.

Once she no longer shook herself awake every time there was a bump in the road, Sandor steered toward home. It was a shitty, run down apartment but it was one of the few places he had. He patted her pockets before moving her and took the pepperspray from her loosened fingers. Then he pulled her out of the car, careful not to disturb her and carried her in his arms inside to lay her down on his bed. That cocktail dress of hers was unbearably inviting and he ran a hand up her thigh to feel under the fabric, squeezing a little to feel the shape of her before he stepped away to find a drink.

Sansa awoke in the dark, in a strange place. It was tempting to roll over, into the dark, and drown. But fear had a hold of her, and what's more, her pockets were empty. So she got up, fumbling on the wall for a light switch.

The light flickered on to reveal, well, a man's bedroom. It was starkly furnished with dirty clothes and dirtier magazines strewn about. Empty beer bottles and a dirty ashtray sat on the table beside the bed. Bars over the outside of the window made it clear the neighborhood wasn't any nicer.

The truck driver, it must be his place. She didn't feel like she'd been drugged or hit or fucked, but the realization still hit her like a knee to the gut and she stumbled, slumping into the wall. Her eyes darting about, she sought some sort of weapon. He took her pepperspray. She was a fucking stupid little girl. It took a few moments for her to recover her composure, and then she straightened and pushed the door open wide.

Sandor had been drinking. He drank when he couldn't sleep, which was nightly. When the bedroom door opened he had his boots up on the kitchen table and a bottle in his hand, his eyes were fixed on the stucco ceiling. "Morning, Kitten," he drawled without looking at her. It was not yet sunrise.

She stood in the doorway, anxious fingers pulling at the scab that had formed on her lip until it stung and bled anew. Blood dotted her thumb, a fat drop on the thumb. She sucked it and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. Even that reminded her of Joffrey. "You know who I am, don't you," she said.

"I know you're no Cat Tully if that's what you mean," he said gruffly, finally tearing his eyes from the ceiling to look her over again. He locked eyes with her. "You're a terrible liar, Sansa."

She stared at him, her blue eyes boring into his dark ones. Anger filled her. This man was so hateful that he would bring her back to be abused again... probably for money, or a pat on the head like an obedient hunting dog. "Tell me your name," she said, so she would know who to curse as she lay awake at night, not sleeping.

He rose to his feet slowly, setting the bottle heavily on the table, and lumbered toward her. She was much smaller than him, especially as he stood over her with whiskey on his breath. He cupped her jaw in a very large hand and leaned in to tell her, "Sandor. Clegane."

Not many were taller than she was. It irritated Joffrey that she dwarfed him even without heels. It irritated her that she couldn't stop thinking about him, as if the devil she knew was better than this unknown. Anything would be better than home. Not wanting to look at him and sensing he wanted to kiss her, she shut her eyes.

Sandor tilted her head this way and that with a noise that sounded like a growl. All he could think of was tearing that fancy, shiny dress off of her. He ran his hand over the fine fabric hugging her waist and moved in, almost as if to kiss her. Instead, he spoke into her ear, his voice low and rumbling. "Joffrey's toys are always the shiniest, it makes him that much happier to break them," he said. "I was just trying to decide whether or not to fuck you, kitten."

She doesn't shiver or show fear as it washes over her and then is gone, a drifting tide on the shore. Opening her eyes, she shoves him and takes a step around him, moving to pick up the bottle of whiskey. It hangs loose in her hand by her hip. "You're drunk," she says. "I'd sober up first, and try a shower."

He scowls and follows her to grab the bottle as well, though he doesn't take it from her. He just wants her to know that he could. "You think you're funny, little girl?"

"No," she says. "Do you think you're anything like Joffrey?"

"I think Joffrey would pay me well to make you beg to return to him."

She shrugs and tugs the whiskey from his grasp so she can sniff it, then takes a tentative swallow. It's nothing like wine. It's not sweet or dry, just burns. "If that's what you feel is best," she says, resigned.

He watches her, resting his hand on the table behind her. He hadn't expected her to be so... indifferent to his threats. "He'll call me as soon as he knows you're gone," Sandor pushes.

"I'm sure he will," she agrees. She forces another drink just to take something from him, the whiskey mingling with the blood in her mouth, before setting it down. In the light, it's now clear there's a bruise on her cheek.

"You don't seem very concerned," he says. "You seemed pretty desperate last night." He caresses the bruise on her cheek.

"A caged bird will fly as far as it can even with a tether," she says, reminding herself of a story.

"Pretty," he says, attempting to mock her. "Did you come up with that on your own?"

"I think I read it in a book once," she says quietly.

"What book?"

"A book of fairytales. It doesn't matter."

Sandor scoffs. "I bet you grew up thinking you were in a fairytale, didn't you, Kitten?" He strokes her face again, his hand keeps coming back to it, and he makes her look him in the eye. "But there's no happily ever after for people like us, is there?"

She shakes her head, her eyes almost as lost and full of hate as his. He's so entirely different from her boyfriend, even with his hands on her. He put her to bed and let her sleep, undisturbed, and even now he's listening to her, really listening. It's utterly pathetic that her first real conversation with a man is with a bounty hunter or whatever he is.

He looks into her eyes, the darkness in them so uncomfortably familiar when set in such a pretty, young face. He doesn't know what to think of it. Weariness and whiskey clouded his head and he needed to do something with her. Immediately. He took a deep breath and grabbed her by the arm. "C'mere," he slurred and pulled her back toward the bedroom, grabbing the bottle too as an afterthought.

Sansa trailed after him, cooperating so she wouldn't stumble. There were nude magazines everywhere. A repulsive thought came into her head: if she picked one up at random, it would most likely be sticky with stains. His bed was sad, only one bedsheet over a springs mattress and a ratty blue blanket to complete the picture of extreme bachelorhood. He probably had never heard of thread count or down comforters.

He yanks off her trench coat and shoves her onto the bed without a word. Then he rummages through a messy drawer until he finds a pair of handcuffs.

Her pulse spikes and she runs her hands through her soft hair to try to soothe herself. It was mostly in vain. He was a large man, but he was drunk enough that she doubted he could molest her. But that only meant he could become frustrated and hit her.

Sandor takes her hands and handcuffs them to the old pipe metal headboard and his fingers linger to brush her skin when he pulls back to look down at her and takes a deep swig from the bottle. He'd be lying if he said seeing her at his mercy this way didn't do anything for him.

Handcuffs. Joffrey had never used handcuffs. He preferred other people's hands. The metal pinched at her wrists but she made no complaint other than a wince. With her arms pulled back over her head, she shuffles on the bed, kicking at the blanket with her heels on. "Could you take my shoes off first, please?" she asked. They were designer shoes and she didn't want to get anything on them.

Rolling his eyes, Sandor grumbles to himself and pulls her shoes off one at a time without bothering to unbuckle either of them first. He lets them fall to the ground carelessly.

That chore over with, he paces at the foot of the bed with slow, heavy steps as he finishes his drink. Back and forth across the floor once and he manages to pull his belt off and toss it to the side with a clatter. Twice more and he fumbles the fly on his pants down. Even limp as a wet rag, he's an impressive specimen, to say the least, and his cock settles sadly in the cradle of his undone fly. He watches Sansa as he drinks and paces sometimes but anything he grumbles to himself is increasingly incoherent until he finally turns off the light.

Sansa shuts her eyes. It's no different, dark is dark. He's too drunk. He's going to black out and murder her. A part of her wouldn't mind. The rest of her is screaming for her to fight him, to shout like someone would hear, to beg for him to let her go. Nothing comes out.

He rolls into bed with a heavy groan and the whole mattress shifts and squeaks under his weight. He's so fucking glad to be blind drunk and laying in bed. The only thing better is the precious few hours of oblivion that await him. He swipes once at Sansa's handcuffs and rattles them to make sure they're secure. Satisfied with that, he pulls the ratty old blanket over himself and makes no effort to put space between himself and his hostage as he makes himself comfortable and lets sleep take him.

Sansa didn't let herself sleep until she heard him snoring, and given his proximity and his smell, it was not an easy task. But she managed it.

 


	2. Chapter 2

He slept for hours, well into the afternoon and then early evening, totally oblivious to the phone ringing over and over again starting sometime after normal people would have had lunch.

Sansa drifted in and out of sleep and eventually laid awake, waiting for him to wake up and decide what to do with her.

When he finally started to come to, it was with a groan and a splitting headache. He turned over and for a couple minutes he just held his head and swore under his breath.

Serves him right for being such a drunkard. She tugged on the cuffs, making them rattle, to remind him she was there.

He groaned and grabbed her hands to still them. "Shh," he chided, eyes still closed.

She stopped with a heavy sigh.

He stroked her head heavily, perhaps thinking that was a reasonable gesture of approval, and slowly sat up. There was a bottle of pills on the table beside the bed and he shook a few out and swallowed them without water to start on his headache. He didn't even want to know what time it was.

Sansa stared up at the ceiling. Her hands were almost numb and her arms ached. "Your phone has been ringing all afternoon," she said.

"Your boyfriend," he says, rubbing his eyes and rummaging for the key. "Or his mother." He turns and clumsily unlocks her handcuffs.

She looks at her wrists. They're purple and welted, her hands pale. "Wonderful," she says. "What will you tell them?"

"That I've been keeping you tight and limber for him," Sandor says irritably.

"It's not my fault you drank so much," Sansa says, crossing her arms.

He fully opens his eyes for the first time that day just so he can scowl at her properly. "I usually like an open mouth, but yours gets less attractive every time you open it."

Sansa huffs and rolls her eyes. It seems all men are good for is harassing her. If he thinks he's being original or shocking, he's failing miserably. "I don't care what you think of my mouth."

"Obviously," he grumbles and starts to get up. "You think this is fun for me?"

"Let me make you some coffee," she offers, ignoring the bait. She leaves the bedroom to look for a coffeemaker.

He lets her go, only calling after her, "If I hear that door open, you'll regret it." He wanders into the bathroom attached to the bedroom to take a much needed leak, leaving the door open so he can listen to what Sansa's doing.

She looks through what some might call a kitchen. It wasn't well stocked, but she did have enough to make a pot of coffee while ignoring the sounds of him using the bathroom. She got him a bowl of raisin bran and had to use cow milk since he didn't have almond, and set it out as nicely as she could.

When he came into the front room, he stood and stared at the display for a moment as if he couldn't comprehend what he was looking at. "What's this supposed to be?"

"Breakfast," she said, pulling out a chair for him and stepping back. Her expression is empty of pride, regardless of how she feels about how civilized she's made the place look in a few minutes. She's even picked up some of the bottles and garbage.

The place even feels different after her cleaning. He's not sure he likes it. Resting his hand on the back of the chair she has pulled out, he asks, "What are you playing at?"

"I appreciate the suspicion, but I'm not plotting anything," she says. "I'm used to making breakfast and this is the best I could do."

He eyes her uncertainly and takes a seat. "You ought to eat something," he says offhand as he picks up the bowl.

"What difference does it make?"

He shrugs. "You're playing housewife, I might as well play nice."

"It doesn't suit you at all," she says with a little smile.

He scoffs and rolls his eyes, but the ghost of a smile pulls at his mouth.

She still grabs herself a handful of cereal.

He doesn't acknowledge her eating, he just slouches on the table and works his way through the bowl of cereal. "....I need a shower before I listen to that little pisshead's voice," he gripes after a while.

"It might help your head, too. You might even get bold and use soap," she says.

He looks her over, wondering if he ought to lock her up while he showers. But then a worse thought occurs to him. "Well, I guess you'll see," he says and gets up to dump the empty bowl of cereal into the sink.

"Give me that," she says, taking the bowl from him and rinsing it out.

He couldn't understand how casually she took this. A night and a day of barely concealed threats and she couldn't care less. He wondered irritably if they really were so similar, if walking through hell had only served to make her more hard-skinned. He barely let her finish rinsing the bowl before he took her by arm and lead her back through the bedroom. "Enough of that," he said gruffly, "Shower time."

Sansa kept pace with him. "What, you're not going to handcuff me again?"

"No," he tells her. "So get undressed."

Without a word, she unzips her dress and lets it fall around her feet. Her underwear matches. She waits for him to react, to tear the rest off.

Sandor takes her in slowly. Even bruised all to hell, her body is beyond tantalizing and he stares for a moment before gesturing at her underwear. "You waiting for a hand or what? You're getting wet either way."

Sansa is surprised that he doesn't forcefully undress her, and since there's no use being shy she takes off the rest. She looks at him, torn between defiance and defeat.

"I don't know why you're making that face," he says, starting the shower and ushering her in before he undresses. "I'm sure there's plenty of last night you'd love to scrub off."

Sansa twists up the heat and wets her hair first, washing makeup off her eyes and looking in vain for bodywash. She does find a bar of hard soap which she lathers up in her hands to wash herself.

He steps into the shower after her and stares again with an arm braced against the shower wall. There's very little space between their naked bodies now, thanks to his cramped bathroom. He watches the soapy water run in rivulets down her body and eyes the way her wet hair clings to her pert breasts. There is a definite, though silent, hunger in his gaze.

It's hard to avoid looking at him, and everything about him is grotesque. She settles on his feet: ugly but harmless. Yet somehow she still feels like he's going to slap her with his dick. It's what she notices most out of the corner of her eye. "Turn around and I'll get your back," she offers, so used to being useful.

He gives her a questionable look but turns around for her. He doesn't pay much attention to cleaning his back and he suspects that she merely wants his penis turned away from her.

His back is hairy. She rubs the soap into his skin as best she can. While he's turned away from her, she grabs the shampoo and works it into his hair before he can protest.

He ducks away from her hands on his head, near his face. "What are you doing?"

"Washing your hair, hold still. I'm not going to hurt you."

He grimaces but he lets her continue for a few brief moments. Her fingers feel nice against his scalp and part of him wants to relax into the touch and enjoy it. But the greater part of him waves her hands away once the soap covers most of his hair just to keep her fingers away from his scarred face. He takes the bar of soap and, grumbling, washes his cock and arm pits.

"Does it still hurt you?" she asks, pulling his hair back from his face.

Sandor scowls down at her before admitting wearily, "In more ways than you know."

"I'm sorry." Just because she's in pain doesn't mean anyone else should be, even someone like him.

He shrugs, not sure how else to respond to that. He wasn't used to sympathy, and hers didn't feel like pity or fear either. He shuffled past her, a hand on her shoulder and her waist to keep her from slipping as he took her place under the shower head. He turned the heat on the water down and sighed under the cool stream that rinsed the soap from his hair and skin.

She took that to mean he was done with her. Her head was spinning; he hadn't touched her once, not when she was handcuffed in his bed, and not now that she was inches from him and completely naked. He'd looked, his eyes the eyes of a starving man though he must have seen a woman before. If he had an impulse to fuck her like his words implied, he wasn't acting on it. She didn't know why. She stepped out of the shower and dried off, laying the damp towel on the sink for him to grab while she slipped back into her underwear.

 


	3. Chapter 3

When he was finished, he followed her out to dry and dress unceremoniously. His hangover felt much better and there was no use putting the inevitable off any longer. "Time to see how badly the king wants his plaything back, huh kitten?" He did not seem thrilled at the notion as he went to find the messages on his phone.

She wasn't thrilled either, but she followed him into the bedroom, her dress draped over her arm, and flopped onto his bed as much as a proper lady could flop. It was hard for her to imagine how bad her punishment would be, but Joffrey must have seen this coming. Maybe if she cried he'd go easy on her. She doubted it.

There were a number of messages, mostly from Joffrey, and each was more furious than the last. Sandor sat on the bed near Sansa and played the voicemails on speaker. The little king quickly took to calling Sandor a dog for not alerting him that Sansa had escaped and then for failing to answer his phone. What he called Sansa was far worse. Each message made Sandor more reluctant to turn his captive over.

Even so, once the messages ran out Sandor warned Sansa to keep quiet and dialed Joffrey himself. He made sure to turn the speaker off.

"I've got no damn idea," he said when Joffrey answered and finally let him speak. "Last I saw, she was with you. ...Of _course_ I can find the girl. Is that all you want? Or are you paying to have her delivered, too?"

The call was short after that. An amount was offered, Sandor agreed it sounded fair for the effort, and that was that. He made no mention that Sansa was beside him all the while.

Sansa idly played with the set of handcuffs on the bed once Sandor had hung up the phone. She'd been so brave all this time, if she could call it bravery, but Joffrey's voice in the room meant her hands were shaking. "What are you going to do with me?" she asked, laying her future in his hands. It made sense for him to turn her over. He was Joffrey's dog and Sansa's doom.

Sandor found himself staring at the ceiling again. He was itching for a drink. "You had to know he had people watching you," he said, avoiding her question. "I picked you up for the bounty that'd come of it."

"I did piece that much together myself," she says. "I know you work for him." She rests a hand on his shoulder. "Look at me." Look at her, with her bruises, red and purple on white skin, blue eyes sunken and tired, her hair the only part of her well-cared for. Her friends like to brush it, to braid it, even Joffrey concedes it's beautiful.

He looks, taking in the ghastly bruises covering skin that he'd love nothing more than to have his hands all over and the all too familiar tiredness in her eyes. He reaches across the mattress to brush some of her hair aside. "I expected you to beg."

"Is that why you haven't touched me?" she asks.

"No, but it would have made it easier to beat you and send you back. It's what I'm used to."

"What are you going to do with me?" she repeats.

"What am I _supposed_ to do with you?" he snaps. "I can't keep you here, he'd have us both killed." He's angry suddenly, now that the bind he's gotten himself into is clearly apparent. The simplest and smartest move is to turn her in and take the money. As he's done time and time again. But for some reason the thought makes him sick.

"You could always kill me," she suggests. The thought has some appeal, and she muses aloud that they could fake her death, though that was easier said than done. They'd need contacts that she certainly didn't have. Or he could take her to the police and she could ask for asylum from her boyfriend. "Who knows, maybe if you turn me in Joffrey will let you have a turn." The idea amuses and sickens her.

"I'm certain he would," Sandor agrees, though the idea doesn't appeal to him as much as it should. "And I'm certain he'd watch. ...The last place you want to be is with the police."

"Death, then." She takes one of his hands and places it on her throat. "Well?"

Without thinking, he strokes her jaw with his thumb. "You'd rather die than go back to him?"

She nods. "I'm not alive with him."

Sandor can't argue that, death would be far kinder than another day as Joffrey's plaything. He pushes her back onto the mattress and moves to straddle her. When his hand closes tight around her throat he really feels how delicate her body is.

Relief fills her and she feels like she's floating as he cuts off her oxygen. His body above her feels surprisingly secure, so for once she looks up at his face, reading the burns, the furrows, the pockmarks. She's not afraid.

His breathing deepens as he focuses on stealing her breath, but he's stunned to find her looking up at him. There is an understanding between them that he can't begin to articulate. It makes him grateful to be seen by her. It’s just when her body starts to struggle for oxygen that he realizes he's hard and hot as iron and that his erection is leaning heavily against her belly.

Sansa's vision is blurring and her face is going numb, her hands automatically lifting to try and stop what's happening to her. She's light, lighter than she's ever been, and she's only vaguely aware of his excitement.

He tightened his grip on her throat so she can't squirm away in her struggle. It would be so simple to crush her windpipe and be done with it. He knew that was the way to do it and shifted his grip to put more pressure on the trachea.

Squeeze and end it, he told himself, She'll be better off. Even so, his hand would not obey. Worse, in Sansa's final moments of consciousness his grip faltered altogether and he pulled his hand from her throat full of self-reproach.

Sansa lurched forward, gasping and choking as light flooded her vision. Tears stung at her eyes and she wanted to hit him, to shout at him for breaking an unspoken promise. Instead, she collapsed back down to the mattress, panting for breath.

He panted too, as if the failure had knocked the wind out of him. It was such a simple thing, the only good thing he'd ever been in a position to do.

The bed creaked and groaned when he got up. Swearing under his breath, he went to the next room and overturned the kitchen table with a crash and a frustrated yell. He returned moments later to the foot of the bed where he sat with a heavy sigh and held his head in his hands. Chiefly so he wouldn't have to look at her.

Sansa had caught her breath. She was alive and while her body was relieved, the rest of her felt the crush of defeat. More torture. More of being spit on, hit, fucked. But she couldn't fault Sandor for not having it in him to kill her, even out of pity or mercy. She was shocked that he took it out on his furniture, and when he came back, she felt as if she were seeing him for the first time. He would rather see her alive than dead, not out of sadism. He wanted to touch her, but he didn't. So she touched him: she laid her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder.

"It's okay," she said.

It wasn't. Sandor sighed heavily and leaned back into her embrace. His weakness had condemned her to walk back through the seven hells.

There was a long silence between them where he wrestled with what he could not accept. Finally he said, "I'll take you away."

"Take me where?" she asked. "Joffrey won't give up his toys. That's what we are."

"I don't know yet," he admits. "Out of this city, then further. As far as we can go. We'll keep moving until he stops looking for us."

She gives him an uncertain look. "I don't think it will work. You know better. You know the king better." Sansa touched his hair, softer now that it was clean.

"If we become different people it might."

"Different people?"

"New names, new identities," he explains, kneading his forehead. "It'll be easier for you than for me but... we might be able to fake a death long enough to find someplace to hide. I figure we have at least sixteen hours before Joffrey sends my--" He grimaces and stops short. "Before he sends the cops here for information."

Sansa didn't dare to let herself feel hope, though she did try to imagine who else she could possibly want to be. Lady was dead, Father was dead, but she could live if she killed her identity. "But, Sandor, why would you throw all this away?" she said dryly.

He looks over his shoulder to give her the stinkeye. "I don't _have_  to help you."

"No, you don't have to." She was smiling. "We'll have to dye my hair. And I need a name."

"You'll need clothes too."

"I do have money," she tells him.

" _I_ have money," he corrects her. He'd taken her purse along with the pepperspray the night before.

"You have money," she agrees. "I obviously can't go out, but you can take _your_  money and get everything we might need to start a new life. This may be the most foolish thing I've ever done."

"The clothes I bring back won't be _that_ hideous," he says in response to her foolishness comment. "But I'll need your sizes."

She gets up and writes a list for him on a scrap of paper, including underwear, bras in her size, and hair dye. "I'll wait here."

He adds a few things to the list and gets ready to leave. "This should only take a few hours," he tells her. "Three or four."

Sansa waited for him to leave and sat down in front of the television, watching bad soaps and wondering how long they could feasibly run before being caught and punished.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Sandor had been gone for some time when the unmarked cruiser rolled up to the apartment. A mountain of a man stepped out in full police uniform and headed straight for the door of Sandor's apartment. He pounded on the door and called, "Be a good hound and open up, Sandor. It's time for a chat."

Sansa was engrossed in a love story, falling into a trance that left her unprepared for any interruption. Especially such a loud one. Heart pounding like it was about to stop in her chest, she moved to the window and peeked out. A cop, but one who knew Sandor. Only a fool would trust the authorities, so she slunk down and crept away to hide in the bedroom, quietly shutting the door.

He pounded on the door a few more times before simply breaking the lock and shouldering through the deadbolt with a crash. He gave the front room a cursory glance, raising an eyebrow at the soap opera playing on the TV and the splintered, overturned table. "Drinking again, brother?" he called. He shuffled idly through stacks of paper on the floor and counters before walking to the bedroom door.

Sansa nearly screamed when he broke in and, trying her best not to panic though her heartbeat proved her failure, darted to the bathroom before he ever made it to the bedroom door, and did the only thing she could think of doing. She stood in the shower with the curtain drawn just enough to hide her. Stupid girl, she was cornered. It would be better to look for something to hit him with. If only she knew where Sandor had put her pepperspray. Breathing hard, her back to the shower wall, she waited for him to leave.

Gregor threw the door open and it slammed against the wall. He was mildly surprised not to find Sandor in bed with a hangover. What he did find in the bedroom brought a hideous grin to his face, however. There was a cocktail dress draped over the side of the bed and a pair of mary janes on the floor.

Gregor gave a bellowing laugh and said to the empty room, "Did he leave you here alone, girl? Did he think I wouldn't find you?" He knelt on the floor to look under the bed for her, then crossed to the closet to peer inside. Finding nothing, he turned toward the bathroom and took out his baton. His footsteps were heavy as he neared her hiding place.

Each footstep echoed as a thud in her pulse, in her chest. He was going to take her back to Joffrey. Sandor would come home to find her gone without a chance to say goodbye. The thought made her sad and sorry for both of them. He'd tried for her, which was more than she could say for anyone else in her life. But the sudden urge to comfort him if he missed her was anything but an obligation. As her short affair with freedom drew to a close, she realized just how much she appreciated Sandor Clegane-- his unrefined kindness, the weird understanding they had. He'd suffered and he was sorry. She didn't want his brother to bash up the place, so she took a deep breath and pulled back the shower curtain.

The man she saw there was huge, even compared to Sandor, and broad like a gnarled tree trunk. "I'm coming out," she said, stepping out from the shower to show she was cooperating.

His eyes were alive with a darkly twisted excitement when he saw her and he adjusted his grip on the baton as he stepped closer. He smelled like leather and iron and his grin could spook a devil. "Well, well, I'm going to have fun with you," he said and struck her hard in the gut with the baton.

Sansa had been beaten before, but not by someone this strong. Joffrey usually didn't hit her himself, opting to have his friends hit her in the face or kick at her for his amusement. But this was different. He wasn't holding back. The hit knocked her breath out and she doubled over, kneeling on the floor. She clutched at her stomach.

He hit her alongside the head next. Not as hard, just a tap really, but hard enough to make her ears ring. "Don't think that shirt belongs to you, does it?" he growled and ripped it off over her head before grabbing her by the throat and dragging her out of the bathroom.

Only hours ago, someone she'd trusted had put his hands on her throat, and she'd been happy at the thought of death. Now it was staring her in the face and she was an idiot for thinking she was ready. She staggered, moving her hand over his, her fingers biting into him.

He tore her bra off next, pulling until the fabric snapped and discarding it like garbage. Hand still at her throat, he dragged her to his level and licked the side of her face. Only then did he shove her onto her knees in front of him. He joined her at a crouch and grabbed her jaw, squeezing her cheeks together as he rubbed the end of the baton against her underwear. "Bet you're sorry for running now," he taunted.

Sansa sobbed, choking in breaths, sure there'd be a bruise on her neck. She nodded what little she could with his hand so hard on her. "I'll go back, I promise," she pleaded, frantic now. It had been easy to disassociate before, when she was held down and muzzled with wet kisses. This was an all-out attack, stripping her not only of clothes but her mental defenses as well.

Gregor laughed in her face. "It's not a question of whether you'll go back anymore. The question now is what sorry state you'll be in when you do."

She found herself crying hard. She was begging. It was pathetic and she felt low, but she couldn't help it. This thug of a cop frightened her.

He cuffed her hard across the face and stood up. The baton returned to its holster and Gregor got to work unbuckling his belt.

She stared up at him, trying to catch her breath between events. Gingerly, she touched at her neck as if to be sure her head was still connected.

He appreciated her begging and her tears. He'd be hard without them but they were an added treat. When he loosed his cock from his pants it was already weeping and he gripped it firmly, running his hand along its length and looking down at Sansa with a predatory grin.

Sansa covered her face with her hands, then ran stiff fingers up over her face and through her hair, brushing off tears from her eyes to her temples, and tried to consider the task at hand. She couldn't. She couldn't do it. Looking up at him without words, her eyes still begged.

He enjoyed that look for a moment before digging his fingers into the corners of her jaw. "Open it, cunt," he demanded, slapping his cock against her cheeks.

"Oh, gods," she sobbed, bowing her head and dropping her jaw for him. She'd given blowjobs occasionally. Joffrey had decided they weren't kingly and only asked for them when he was too drunk to remember the next day. On those nights, he was soft and pliant and she could usually fake it.

Gregor grabbed a tight fistful of her hair to hold her in place when he shoved his thick cock past those whimpering lips of hers. Better than the heat of her mouth was the trembling and straining of her jaw around him and he groaned to let her hear how much he enjoyed her torment.

Sansa groaned, too, her lips stretched thin and her jaw tight. She breathed the only way she could, through her nose, but when she tried to move, her throat seized and she gagged, her teeth ever so slightly touching him. Her eyes watered.

He dug his fingers into her jaw again and forced her head up and down on his cock. "Gonna make me hold your mouth open too, you worthless bitch? Better hope I let you keep your jaw." He continued fucking her mouth, intentionally making her gag whenever possible so he could enjoy the sound of her helplessness.

Her mouth was so wet. She hated it. It covered his prick and trailed from her tongue, and he let it drip down onto her collarbones, oozing as it mixed with his pre-cum. Her hands were balled into fists and she shut her crying eyes. It was hard to breathe between gags and with what a mess her nose and mouth were.

He slowed to a stop before he could cum and yanked her off him. His cock throbbed as it waved in front of her face, dripping with pre-cum and spit, and he panted hard at his own stalled pleasure. He hated to end a party early.

He wiped himself on her face and hair before turning her away from him and knocking her onto all fours.

Crawl away, she told herself. Grab the furniture, scream, do something. She only sank forward on her elbows, keening. She turned her face to the floor, knocking her forehead a little. It hardly mattered, her head still ringing from where he'd struck her.

Gregor grabbed her around the waist and pulled her against him, his cock pressing hotly against her underwear. He took her nipple between his meaty knuckles and twisted it sharply.

She whimpered. The taste of him still filled her mouth, overwhelming her. Try as she might, she couldn't focus enough to stop shaking, vibrating under him. It occurred to her to grab his cock and twist, see how he liked it. But he was mean enough to kill her for less than that.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Outside, Sandor pulled up in his truck and his blood ran cold at the sight of his front door hanging open. He was out of the car before he saw the unmarked cruiser parked nearby and he nearly collapsed back against the side of his pickup. Gregor had come calling, there was no doubt in his mind about that.

For the longest moment Sandor stood frozen, struggling for breath. Gregor could kill the both of them without a second thought. But he knew the sort of hell Gregor was capable of putting Sansa through and it was that knowledge that finally moved him to action. He reached into the truck to fish Sansa's pepper spray out of the glove box and grabbed a bat from the bed of his truck before heading inside.

Quiet aside from the pounding of his heart, he followed the sounds of whimpering and scuffling into the bedroom.

Gregor had her nearly stripped and locked against him, with one hand mercilessly squeezing her breast and the other clutching between her legs. Terrified and sickened, Sandor clenched his jaw and swung the bat against Gregor's head. The impact sent his brother lurching onto his side with an enraged yell.

Gregor's hold on her meant Sansa was knocked aside too. Time seemed to slow down for her from the moment the bat made a noise against his head, and she saw Sandor, and he saw her in this position. She wasn't ashamed, she didn't give herself allowance to be ashamed. Wrenching out of his grasp while he was surprised, she crawled over to the side of the bed on her hands and knees and backed up, up against the bedside table. It didn't matter that she was naked. Sandor was fighting for her. She sensed, somehow, that he always would.

Gregor staggered to his feet, clutching his head, and snarled, "What's the matter, brother? Afraid there won't be anything left when I'm done?" He laughed and spat blood. "I'll save the best hole for you."

Sandor didn't dare take his eyes off his brother to check on Sansa. Gregor would likely kill him for this if given the chance. "Get in the car, Sansa," he said, then snarled at Gregor, "And *you.* Get out of my house."

Sansa shakily got to her feet and ran past Gregor- or tried to. He grabbed her arm and yanked her off her feet, making her cry out in pain, before shoving her towards the bed. She collapsed onto it. "You've gone soft, Sandor," Gregor said.

Sandor growled wordlessly and lunged forward, swinging low at Gregor's knees.

He stepped out of the way and grabbed Sandor by the hair, throwing him hard onto the hard ground.

Sandor hit the floor with a pained grunt and rolled onto his back, clutching the bat for dear life. Stupid fuck, he thought as his head swarmed with true terror and he tried to get back on his feet. He didn't want to die crushed under Gregor's heel.

Sansa had gone very quiet. Her screams were escaping from her body instead of her mouth, and in the time it took Gregor to step on Sandor's hand and wrench the bat away from him, she had picked up a bedside lamp and swung it as hard as she could into the Mountain's skull. The skull broke before the lamp did; his head split open, his face permanently frozen in a surprised look, and he collapsed.

It happened so suddenly that when Gregor fell, Sandor could hardly understand it. Time felt frozen, the space between two heartbeats stretched into an eternity devoid of anything but Gregor's mountainous frame crumpling into a motionless pile.

Sandor grabbed the bat back and got up slowly, breathing hard and holding his injured hand close to his side. He poked at his brother's body to be certain, but there were no lies in the blood seeping from his head.

He tore his eyes away to find Sansa standing there and he was speechless. There were no words for the relief and the awe that washed over him.

Sansa stared down at the body where she stood on the bed, and then gracefully dismounted, avoiding stepping her bare feet into the pool of blood. She was full of horror. She was a horror. Tears were running unbidden down her nose while she walked over the body to take his hurt hand and examine it, a broken bird in her care. She ran two fingertips down the lines on his hands, her chest shuddering.

Sandor winced when she took his hand, certain some of the bones were broken. Still, he dropped his weapon immediately at her touch and put a hand, the good one, on her shoulder. He wasn't even sure if he meant to reassure her or to steady himself but he took a moment to look her over. Luckily, it didn't look like any of the injuries his devil of a brother had given her were immediately dangerous. He stooped a little to meet her eyes and said, "We have to go."

She nodded solemnly and grabbed her trenchcoat, buttoning it up to hide that she was naked underneath, and her shoes. She'd killed a cop. Sandor was her only hope now, and that must've been why she'd done it. It wasn't enough to protect herself. Before, it had never been enough to shake her out of her fugue. But seeing Sandor in danger had triggered a change in her. She hoped it would last.

Sandor took a moment to wipe her fingerprints from the lamp, not bothering to get rid of his own. He grabbed a few things, including a bottle of whiskey, before ushering her outside to the truck. He handed her the bottle once she was in her seat, saying, "You'll want this. And there's clothes at your feet."

Sansa held the bottle between her thighs to get it open. It was a bloody sunset, and they drove away from the setting sun and towards the night. The whiskey wasn't cooperating so she turned her attention to the bag of clothes. At least they were in the right size, but that was about all they had going for them. She found a long floral, white dress that looked like it belonged on a beach wedding in a cult and settled on it over a selection of other similarly hideous dresses. Taking off her clothes again made her shrink back into herself, and she pulled the new bra and dress on as quickly as she could.

He reached over at a stoplight and opened the whiskey for her. Night was falling fast, soon they'd have the protection of night over their getaway. "We're going to the river to ditch the car," he told her as he drove. "There's another ready for us."

Sansa forced down a mouthful of whiskey, then another, and soon enough she was hugging her knees and crying, the day washing over her, drowning her in its lewd atrocities.

Sandor grimaced and gestured her across the bench to his side. "C'mere, Kitten, c'mere."

She unbuckled her seatbelt and scooted over to curl up against him, and she couldn't stop crying.

Shifting a little to make her more comfortable, he wrapped an arm snug around her. "He's gone now," Sandor reassured her, unable to keep his usual gruffness from his voice, "I'm going to keep you safe." He didn't know what to say other than that. He was still shocked that she had saved him, and sick that he hadn't returned sooner.

She quieted into little hiccuping sobs, and she buried her face in his shirt, which inadvertently became a sort of kerchief, wet with tears and snot. "I'll keep you safe, too," she said, lifting her head to talk into his collar. He was warm. "I won't let anyone be unkind to you anymore. Not even me."

"I'm very easy to be unkind to," he teased lightly, rubbing her back. He didn't care about her dirtying his shirt, it had seen worse. Her protectiveness startled him - no one had ever demonstrated a desire to protect him before after all - and accepting it was the most alien feeling.

Sansa rested her head on his shoulder, dozing off. Coming to was unpleasant. "Do you know what he did?" she said.

He swallowed hard to steel himself to hear it. "What?"

"He made me give him a blowjob. He beat me."

Sandor glanced down at her, pained, and hugged her to him a little more tightly. "I'm sorry I took so long."

Sansa pulled away, retreated to the side of the car, and retched out the window. Nothing came up, not even the whiskey that had settled hot in her stomach. "Would you have been happy if it had been you?" she asked, not crying for the time being. He'd threatened, but she wanted to know if he would have followed through. If she'd shown her weakness earlier, would he have fucked her like everyone else.

He was quiet for a long, uncomfortable moment. "If I wanted to rape you," he said at last, "I'd have done that instead of drinking myself into a stupor."

She mulled it through her head and nodded. It made sense. "And now? What if I threw myself at you?" It was the whiskey talking, it was the power of murder on her hands, it was the way the night was stealing away her fear and how his body heat and scent seeped into her skin.

He shrugged a little, trying to entertain the thought but there's too much noise in his head to make it fun. All he could think of is Gregor's grinning mug and Sansa's screams. "I don't think I could even get it up," he admitted with a small, bitter laugh.  
  


* * *

  
They dumped the truck in the river before leaving town and continued in an old black SUV that Sandor had procured. He didn't say how he got ahold of it.

Once they were a few hours out of town, they checked in at a motel that took cash. It wasn't cushy but it was something.

The first thing Sansa did was lock herself in the bathroom and wash the day off of her, scrubbing where necessary. She came out in her ugly floral dress and laid on the one bed, grateful she didn't have to sleep alone. On the way there, they'd eaten greasy burgers. It could almost have been normal.

 


End file.
